We transferred the honey from the bucket into jars last night. It was wonderful to watch it flow out of the honey gate, and having a box on the floor underneath it kept our kitchen from getting sticky.
The good news is that the honey continues to taste wonderful and is a beautiful amber color. We had it for dessert last night over frozen yogurt.
I can't really taste the lavender in it, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. Ellie and I tried a lavender-infused honey at a farmers market once; Ellie said the lavender flavor was overwhelming and I thought it just tasted like honey...
We filled up almost all the mason jars that we had in the house, 33 cups in total, or 29 jars of various sizes. That translates to about 25 lbs. of honey using the "Bee Honey Conversion Calculator". The shocking fact is that this came from one hive, and being the first year, I was only able to take six frames from it. If both hives produce like they should next year, we'll have 3-4x this amount! I don't think we'll have enough friends to give it all away.
We also have a good amount of wax left over, which we'll use sometime this winter during a rainy weekend to make candles. Thanks again to the bees! They are truly amazing creatures.
This is so cool. I can't believe you harvested that much!
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